


Center of Gravity

by missbluebonnet



Series: The Lovely Moons [12]
Category: The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Adorable Baby Yoda (The Mandalorian TV), Blind Character, Drama, F/F, F/M, Family Bonding, Family Dynamics, Found Family, Reader-Insert, Romance, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-27
Updated: 2020-12-12
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:34:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 20,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27742321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missbluebonnet/pseuds/missbluebonnet
Summary: The Mandalorian travels to Sorgan with you and the child to request a favor (or two) from a friend.
Relationships: Cara Dune/You, Din Djarin & Cara Dune, Din Djarin - Relationship, Din Djarin/Reader, Din Djarin/You
Series: The Lovely Moons [12]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1638400
Comments: 140
Kudos: 322





	1. Center of Gravity

**Author's Note:**

> A special thanks to Bunny and Patricia for ensuring I'm making sense with Star Wars lore.
> 
> I'm so sorry for the delay in this installment. Thank you all for your kind words and encouragement!  
> Please let me know what you think!

Oftentimes, Din is more pessimistic than you would expect, but his take on Sorgan being a “backwater skughole” isn’t quite far off the mark. 

It’s certainly humid and without any major developments, but you see a certain charm to the towering forests of pine and mud stamped roads. After a few hearty meals and a bit of exercise in the hull, the child is almost back to his usual happy hopping self. You feel lighter when the hatch opens and the two of you toe curiously off the ramp, your staff feeling the uneven ground carefully. 

The blurry shape of the child toddles here and there until he comes to hold the bottom of your staff with three green fingers, waddling around it happily in circles while Din finishes loading a pack for the three of you. 

“Are you sure they will be able to accommodate us?” you question, eyeing the Mandalorian as he trudges closer to you with the familiar cocksure stride. “This is short notice, and it’s their harvest time. They must be very busy.”

“They owe me a favor or two.” 

You smirk at the telltale sarcasm, knowing he must have shown quite a feat of bravery to feel this assured that you will be welcome. The two of you walk side by side down the forest path, his own boot steps measured and uneven to match your own, and you let the child hop and dance and puff along beside you until he begins to lag. You bring him up with one arm so he can cling to your shoulder, and you carry him the rest of the way.

Din hasn’t spoken much of this associate that he claims will be a good partner for taking on the imperial bounty. You can’t imagine anyone living on this sleepy planet who would be fierce enough to fell an AT-ST, as he so claims, but he has never led you astray. You do doubt his opinion that she will be more suited to teaching you self-defense and hand-to-hand combat than him, but you also recall Briinx and Rhalaz’s opinions on Din’s capabilities of melee. 

Perhaps it’s just as well.

The truth of the matter is that you need extra credits for fuel, and Din needs a capable partner to go after this bounty. He’s staunch in that stance, and you wonder in the guarded tone of his voice if he isn’t more shaken than he lets on after being burned by the stormtrooper. You almost broach the subject several times, but the frigid air between you two whenever you get close to speaking of it stops you in your tracks.

Not that it matters. As it stands, the bounty had gone off world by the time Din was awake and functioning again, and he claims his associate on Sorgan has contacts that might be able to point him in the right direction.

Which brings you to the middle of the damp wilderness of the green planet of Sorgan, toeing pine needles and squinting through the earthy watercolors your vision makes of everything. Din, in his polished dark armor, seems a shade, a figment of the deep space you’d left behind, and the child in your arms reaches out to him with grabbing little hands, whining insistently.

An orange fingered glove holds the baby’s hand as gently as if handling cotton, and you smile when the little one’s ears flutter up and down in happiness. If you didn’t know better, he’s trying to assure himself that neither of you will go anywhere, and you don’t have the heart to break that assurance.

The walk itself isn’t long, but your feet are unsure on the uneven terrain. More than once, the soft soles of your boots slip on mossy rocks and mud slicked parts of the path where rainwater pools, and you aren’t sure when Din lets go of the child’s hand to rest his palm against your back. It feels natural, though, and comforting, so the next time you slip on the gentle slope up toward the thatched huts of the meager outcropping of village buildings, you whisper your thanks with a minimum amount of heat in your face.

You’re paying so much attention to the path that you don’t recognize the sound of approaching feet until you’re suddenly ambushed, surrounded by a small sea of young children clamoring towards Din from playing in the reeds near the fishing ponds. They’re yelling and laughing and reaching up, and more than one rushes you to greet the baby, whose ears perk up instantly. He squeals with delight, clapping his hands at one girl with dark hair and glittering eyes who greets him with a kiss upon his brow.

It reminds you of Corde so very much that your eyes are quickly glassy with tears, which is just as unexpected as the group of younglings gathering and calling out "Mr. Hero!" and "Little Baby!" 

Din pats a few on their heads, grunting when several of the younger boys grab at his legs and swing from his arms in play. He heaves one up aloft over his pauldron with a long-suffering sigh before straightening his back, tense and still.

You watch through your blurred vision, worried for a moment that he's hurt himself or a child by accident, before he whirls around, drawing at his hip holster and aiming his fingers in the shape of a blaster toward the tall grass. From it bursts even more children, shrieking with delight and running around him, heading for the village. 

"Friends of yours?" 

He drops the child on his shoulder to his feet, gently thumping him on the head before watching him run off. When his helmet tilts toward you, he shifts from boot to boot.

"If I had any, it'd be them."

Your front teeth catch your bottom lip on a smile, and at the insistent tugging of children on your dress, you gently set the child down on his feet. He immediately toddles, arms cast out on both sides to retain his balance before he sets into a full huffing run to play with the other children. You and the Mandalorian watch curiously as the child completely integrates himself in the gaggle of youth, chirping and babbling gibberish. 

A warm, steady hand at your back draws your attention away, and the warrior at your side directs you to the wooden steps of a building a few yards away. The path in front has been worn down from use. Inside, you hear raucous shouting that seems to shake the thatched roof, and you blanch at the vibrations beneath your feet. You’ve felt it enough to recognize the scuffles of a fight.

“We’re going in there?”

“It’s where Cara is. Why?” 

The genuine surprise in his voice makes your eyebrows lift even higher, not to mention the name of his contact. You have all too vivid memories of the last time he was drawn into a brawl in the dusty subterranean enclave on Nevarro. Your stomach seems to churn and cramp at the reminder, and you swallow hard around a growing knot of anxiety. 

Worn leather fingers capture your hand that has begun to wring your dress at your side, and the gleaming helmet tilts closer towards you. His voice is tender in hisz quiet baritone when he asks, “What is it?”

Your mouth opens, but the words die in your throat. It’s not utterly irrational to worry for him-not really. He has risked his life nearly every day you’ve known him and always come out on top, but that luck surely will run its course. The sounds of children’s laughter behind you seem to grow distant, and he stands in front of you, his impatience making itself known in the shift between his boots.

That little gesture buries your concern, walling it behind something thick and uncomfortable.

“Nothing,” you murmur, drawing your hand back gently. The two of you face each other with more things unsaid in the heavy silence, you knowing he’s aware of you holding back. Just as you know he is fighting between the urge to stay and the need to go. You make the decision for him, closing your staff and tucking it beneath your robe, and grasp the railing to ascend the short stoop. “It’s nothing.” 

You can hear his sigh, quiet but creating soft static through the modulator, but he resumes his place at your side, bringing his palm back up to the small of your back as you walk up the rickety steps side by side. You don’t feel quite comfortable leaving the child outside, even if he isn’t alone, and when you hesitate at the door, the Mandalorian looks back at you, reading your wariness.

“We won’t be long,” he finally says with a determined promise in his voice, and you nod and allow him to escort you inside. It’s much darker beyond the entrance of what you find is a tavern, lit by the meager sunlight slipping past the eaves. It is a broad, expansive space full of the scent of charred meat and hot bread, and your stomach begins to cramp at the delicious smells. 

But, that would have to wait.

A fight, unlike any you’ve ever witnessed, unfolds before you so violently that the sandy floorboards tremble beneath your feet. You don’t realize it when you clutch the Mandalorian’s arm, but he carefully leads you around the room behind the crowd of cheering, yelling spectators. Your eyes drift down to look at the floor and where you step, rather than attempt to make anything out of the brawl happening in the middle of the tavern. You feel more than hear when a body is thrown savagely against a piece of furniture, and your nails begin biting into Din’s bicep through the thick fabric of his shirt beneath his armor.

His movements are careful as he maneuvers you both into an empty pocket in the crowd, bringing you in front of him so his arms can wrap around your frame, keeping you safely ensconced. The lip of his helmet touches your shoulder, and the familiar weight of the beskar anchors you to the floor. 

“What’s going on?” 

“Gambling,” he answers simply, his modulator cutting through the crowd of onlookers and their shouting. You begin to relax further into the firm steel chestplate at your back when his leather gloved fingers draw circles on top of your arms. “Mercenaries out of work who turn to spectator sports to make money.”

You can hear the brutal, meaty blows of fists connecting with muscle and bone, and you can’t help but flinch every time. Your heart has taken to galloping in your breast being so close to the fight, and a downtrodden part of you thinks you’ll never be fit to fight anyone, much less defend yourself.

Crackling, brilliant electricity lights up your vision when a few spectators move in front of you, and you can see what appears to be a corded whip connecting the two fighters. You suck in a breath when they clash together in a vicious slam, throwing each other to the floor. 

“Shame,” Din mumbles at your ear. “This would’ve been easy money if we’d got here sooner.”

“I didn’t know you made bets,” you say, a smile tugging at one corner of your mouth. The small details of this man continue to amuse and endear you to him, and finding his regimented, disciplined personality could be broken up by something as mundane as gambling is both surprising and funny. 

He says nothing, humming noncommittally and continuing to watch. Your eyes follow the electrical cord, the brightest bit that you can make out with your poor eyesight, and you suck in a breath when you realize one fighter begins to loop it around their opponent. The next moment, the thickly muscled alien begins to choke, and his huge fist slams down on the floor desperately, tapping out.

The tavern’s patrons cheer, throwing up hands and credits and all manner of clamoring shouts in different languages. The crackling electrical cord suddenly disappears, and as you watch the winner help their defeated opponent from the floor, you suck in a breath.

It’s a woman.

“Pay up, mudscuffers!” the winner yells, her smile so brilliantly white and gleaming that you can see it from across the tavern. The sound of credits being thrown and passed is foreign to you, and you admit you are more than enchanted by this woman’s command of the room, of the crowd.

Of Din, who shifts from behind you to move into the winner’s line of sight. Her smile somehow broadens into a half hungry, half fiendish sort of delight, and the Mandalorian nods her way.

“Looking for work?”

When she walks, she swaggers, and you can’t really take your cloudy eyes away from her boots, the guards on her hands, the armor on her shoulders. She throws out a sturdy hand, which Din grasps at her forearm in a firm, reliable gesture of comradery. 

“Good to see you,” she grins, her voice a velvety alto that makes you feel warmer. You’re not sure when she sees you, but you can tell after a moment her eyes flicker from the armored warrior toward your position behind him. She tips her head deep to the side, still smirking. “Step into my office.” 

The table is near the corner, far enough that no one should be able to overhear anything spoken, and Din brings out your chair for you to sit down in before angling himself towards the door of the tavern. The woman plops heavily down across from the two of you, spreading herself out in a victorious unfurling that exudes confidence and satisfaction. You wish you could sit near a window or the door so you could peek outside at the baby, but you feel a gentle nudge of a boot under the table and turn back around.

A tavern worker approaches the table, but before she can ask what anyone would like, the woman drops a few coins on the table before her. “Spotchka, for the ladies.”

Heat floods your face and you quickly sit up straighter. “Oh, I don’t-”

Two cups are promptly set on the table, and you can see the brilliant blue beverage poured until it kisses the lip of the cup. The server does the same in front of the fighter, taking her money before disappearing. She leaves the flagon.

“It’s good, but it burns,” the fighter warns you, and you can still see the white of her teeth. You don’t touch your share.

“I need some help. A job.”

“Not going to introduce me to your friend?” The woman asks, and you think she’s pouting. The Mandalorian shifts beside you, and you can hear his deep inhale before the fighter throws her hand out at you from across the table. “Cara Dune,” she says, her voice purring it more than proclaiming it with no shortage of pride. You feel more heat in your cheeks as you lean forward to shake her hand, calluses scraping the sides of your hand. “Never seen anyone with this guy before. Other than the-wait, where is the kid?” 

Cara turns in her chair, looking under the table and around at the floor, and you hear Din sigh beside you. “He’s outside. Playing.” 

“Did you see Winta? She grew another inch since you left.”

“I need help with a job,” Din repeats, and you think you can hear annoyance in his tone. Or perhaps it’s just that he’s tired. You rest one hand in your lap, the other gently moving beneath the table to lay on top of his cuisse. Your thumb trails the edge of it, catching on his pants, and you can hear him take another breath. “I-I have a bounty that’s proving more difficult than I expected.”

“Why me?” Cara asks, lifting her cup to her mouth. You don’t realize you’re staring at the curve of her bicep until you catch a wink from over the cup, and you quickly look away to a very fat, sleeping loth cat near the bar. 

“I...lost the lead. Was hoping you might know where I can start,” Din mutters, and it sounds like he has a bad taste in his mouth, whether from admitting he needs help or having to ask for it, you’re not sure. There’s a tension in the silence between the three of you, and you know Din isn’t going to tell her exactly what happened. Not that he needs to, you think, but Cara Dune seems to pick up more than she lets on.

“Well, if you need information for a bounty, I doubt you’d be welcome where I’d go. They’d draw before you could make a case for yourself,” she puffs, a mirthless sound. The hand not holding the cup of spotchka is drumming against her knee where her leg is propped against the table’s edge. “Is that what your friend’s here for? Bait?”

“No.”

The heat leaves your face at how cold Din’s voice gets, razor like, and you look down at your hand in your lap. 

“What? You want me to go fishing for you?” Cara snorts, taking another deep gulp of the crystal blue drink. “You must really be desperate to ask me something like that.”

The Mandalorian remains as stoic and silent beside you as the steel he wears, and you can see Cara’s face change, melting and molding into something equally fierce. “I’m not looking to get involved in another hunt, Mando.”

“You won’t. I just need information.”

“I don’t know,” Cara tosses her head to the side, her dark shorn hair clearing her face. “I’ve been advised to lay low. If anybody runs my chain code, I’ll rot in a cell for the rest of my life.” 

“I thought you were a veteran.”

A hand slaps the table from your side, and you jump as a hulking alien pushes money towards Cara, his demeanor unamused. She flashes a brilliant white smile and nods toward him. “Come back soon,” she sings, her voice gentle and low. It might be the only soft thing about her, you think. She turns her eyes back on you, and then the Mandalorian. “I’ve been a lot of things since. Most of them carry life sentences, too. I can’t risk it. Something as simple as booking passage on a New Republic ship-”

“I have a ship. We’ll take you to where you need to go, and I’ll make sure you’re dropped back off here with more than fair compensation.” You raise your eyebrows at this, digging your thumb into the side of Din’s thigh. What kind of compensation? You’re more than acquainted with the fact he doesn’t even have enough money for fuel. 

Cara shakes her head slowly, rolling her neck. “I can’t risk it, Mando. Especially not for some local warlord bounty.”

“He’s not a local warlord,” You don’t realize you’ve spoken until Cara sets her cup down, and Din’s helmet turns towards you enough to catch sunlight that’s streaming in from the roof. Your face heats again, looking toward Cara and keeping your voice level. You can still feel the vibrations of the carbonite freezer being shaken almost off the hinges. “He’s Imperial.” 

Cara doesn’t move, the curves of her cheeks still holding up a smug and self-satisfied grin, but she slowly dips her chin downward. “Alright. I’m in.”

Feeling tension flee you didn’t even know you had, your shoulders drop. Warm leather encompasses your hand resting on Din’s leg beneath the table, and he squeezes your fingers with his own. With your free hand, you lift your previously untouched cup to your lips and take a delicate sip of the spotchka. It tastes a little sweet and grassy with a potent strike of alcohol, and your nose wrinkles at the distinct flavor. You set it back down before attempting to meet Cara’s eyes.

“Where will you get your information from?”

“Coruscant. Ever been?” When you shake your head, Cara snorts and downs the last of her drink. “Yeah, didn’t think so. Place is nothing but a home for crime syndicates at this point, but if you want information on an Imperial, my contact there will have it.” 

Din heaves a sigh beside you, and you look at him out of your periphery. “That's the inner rim. It’ll be hard to manage. And there’s one more thing,” he says, his voice rasping and his tone rather cagey. 

“Isn’t there always?” Cara winks your way again, and that’s the last bit of warmth you feel toward her for a while.

Because now, you are flat on your back in the mud, staring up at the watery greyish blue sky, and you think you might truly try and kill this woman. As far as you can see, you have a few options.

You can ring Din Djarin’s neck and try to bury him in the woods, and that option is looking favorable now that he’s set this friend of his on you for combat training. You want to take back everything you said, the declarations of family and love and contribution to a Mandalorian clan, because this is the fifth time Cara Dune has slammed you so hard that you’ve left a bodily indentation in the earth.

Option two is giving up on melee and trying to take as many hits as you can. The idea of tiring out your opponent seemed like a good one to begin with, but Cara is made of muscle, sculpted and hard as stone. Every time you think you know what a grab or a shuffle or a hit will feel like, it leaves you winded and sore. Maybe if you had beskar covering you from head to toe, it wouldn’t be as big a feat, and you don’t miss your chance to shoot the Mandalorian a withering glare when he tries to give you advice, sitting on the fence lining the border of your host’s property.

“Don’t listen to him,” Cara says breezily, a playful smile tugging the pink curve of her lips from above you where she props her fists akimbo. “He hasn’t been able to beat me, either.” She gives you her hand and hoists you up like you’re a trodden flower, and you feel mud caking your back, bum, and legs. A large, wet clump of dirt falls from your scraggly braid, and the child giggles from his perch on the fence post beside his father, clapping his hands.

“Do you have to hit so hard?” you ask, rubbing your abdomen where her elbow had jammed against you to throw you off of her. You wince at the sensation, dropping your shoulders. “I don’t think I’m retaining any of this.”

“Look,” Cara gently turns you toward her, both of her hands warm on your shoulders as she keeps you at arm’s length. There is nothing clear about her to you, even up close. She is about the same height as you, give or take an inch, but somehow you still feel small as she stares down her nose. “We have some advantages being women in fights against boys. You just have to know how to use them.”

Heat begins to crawl up your neck to your ears when you imagine the various guards and soldiers you have crossed paths with over the years. Nothing about them even remotely seems conquerable to you, even without their armor. Black or white, armed or not, something within you deflates at the prospect.

“Like what?”

“Center of gravity,” Cara says, dropping her hands and taking a step backward. “Mando, come give me a hand.” 

You hear very quiet mumbling from the armored man, but the sounds of boots stomping through mushy grass and wet mud circle from behind you until the Mandalorian stands beside Cara.

Without a word, she shoves him hard in the shoulder, and unsurprisingly, he barely moves. “A man’s center of gravity is here, in the center,” she says firmly, the back of her fist bumping against the beskar chest plate over Din’s heart. His helmet tilts down toward her wrapped knuckles. “Hits here aren’t going to do much for you or him. Now,” she repositions herself, her feet planted shoulder width apart, and she rests her hands on her belt. “Ladies center of gravity is lower. We’re more equipped to be grounded, to feel solid beneath our feet. That’s our advantage. So if you want to take a man down, don’t aim up. Aim low.”

You watch, fascinated, as her blurry outline suddenly collides with Din, her shoulder ramming down toward his abdomen. The Mandalorian is caught off guard and tries to keep his balance by outweighing Cara, scrambling to dig his heels in. But her logic is sound, and the lower she aims herself, the sooner Din is thrust backward, nearly rolling backward over his own helmet. You hear a muffled groan into the grass, and Cara straightens upward, beaming. “See?”

Wrinkling your forehead, you rub one of your arms, nodding warily. “I’m not as strong as you,” you point out, but Cara shrugs, grabbing Din by the scruff of his neck where his cape is and hauling him to his feet.

“Doesn’t matter. It’s all about gravity. Let it do the work for you. With a little bit of elbow grease and the element of surprise, you’ll have plenty of guys on their backs. Uh, in a fight,” she adds, flashing a brilliantly white smile. Din rolls his head from side to side, cracking his neck. “Now, you should try.”

Your eyes widen, glancing between their two shapes. “I-I don’t want to hurt him.” 

“You won’t,” they both reply in unison.

“Just try to push him over,” Cara adds, slapping the side of his helmet. “He might be old, but he’s scrappy.”

Din mutters beneath the helmet, “We’re only a few years apart.”

You blow out a heavy breath, shaking your hands at your sides, and suddenly, the Mandalorian has never seemed so intimidating. You know that it’s Din, a very kind-hearted, quiet man standing in front of you, but with all the armor, the dark clothing beneath, he seems more like an impassable shadow. Your hesitation is used against you, because in two quick strides, Din grabs your shoulders and twists you around, and you realize he’s trying to push you down to the ground. Heart thundering like a rabbit, you attempt to push with your feet down, throwing yourself back against his chest, and it might as well be a stone wall you’re trying to move.

“Low!” Cara yells, squatting down a few feet away. “Don’t push up, push low!”

It’s awkward, at first, purposefully throwing your weight to the side instead of up, and you use Din like a landing pad, letting him hit the ground first so you can roll back on top of him. It’s clumsy and panicked, but you’re surprised at how quickly you can scramble up and away from him. Even in his armor, Din is an adept fighter.

“Not bad,” Cara walks over, and you can taste grass now, stained green with mud in your hair as you lean your hands on your knees. Din doesn’t make a move to get up, having accepted his fate as a practice dummy, and he continues to just rest flat on his back. “The easiest things to remember are to hit where someone is weak. Obviously not him,” she adds, gesturing to the helmet. “But if it’s an unarmored man, the eyes and nose are good places to start.”

“What about if he’s armored then?” you ask through your pants for air. You gently lower yourself forward until your knees sink into the grassy carpet. You’ve never felt this sore before.

“It depends. A Mandalorian’s armor is different than, say, a trooper’s.” 

“The knees are usually pretty vulnerable,” Din says, and you narrow your eyes at how perfectly unaffected he sounds from his position. “Especially if you can get at them from the side. Hips are good if you have a weapon, because there’s no way most will be able to walk if you can aim at them.”

A distant, foggy memory tries to emerge from the depths, and you think of brawny arms wrapping around you when a soaked cloth was covering your mouth and nose. You want to ask how you could have escaped that attack on Cantonica. You want to ask what Cara would have done in that situation, but the fear of knowing the truth-that only you were stupid enough to fall into that trap at all-keeps your mouth shut.

“What is it?” Din’s voice is so soft, but it still pulls you out of your wonderings. His visor is looking at you now, the sun gleaming on the beskar as bright as super star clusters.

“Nothing,” you murmur, pushing some loose, sweat soaked hair from your face.

“You deserve a break. Come on, I’ll show you where the bath house is,” Cara says, her own voice gentler. She helps you to your feet, dusting off some mud from your back.

“Wait-” Din moves fast then, nearly tripping over himself to stand up, but Cara waves him off.

“It’ll give you some privacy, won’t it?” she asks, and you think she might be trying to bait him into something, fishing for some details or asking a question without really saying the words. Because when Din curls his fingers into fists at his sides, you swallow instinctively. “You’re safe here. All of you.”

You know the Mandalorian well enough now to recognize his hesitancy, even beneath the beskar, and you try to smile reassuringly his way before Cara gently steers you back toward the fence. She helps you climb over the side, retrieving your staff and cloak for you. Your own beskar is tucked within the folds of fabric, and you hold it tight as you follow her down the path towards the village. 

Krill harvests are being lifted out of the mossy water banks by the bushel, and you can smell the algae hanging in the air. While the community is small, they are lively, working together to not just bring in their aquamarine catch, but they also brew spotchka in brewing houses all throughout the village that gives it a bit of a sweet aroma.

Cara waits for you outside the small cottage barn where you, Din, and the child are staying. He’s claimed the owner is a very kind woman, a leader in the small society, and you feel safer knowing he can trust her and these people who are foreign to you. It was easier to blend in when you lived with the Moff on his estate. Guards and soldiers, lieutenants and commanders constantly roamed the halls of the sprawling house. In your child’s memory, you can remember burgundy columns that spiraled into a lofty ceiling, smooth sandstone flooring that opened out into regimented and manicured gardens. The order you had been so familiar with seems lifetimes away now in this wild, thriving village.

After you scoop up your clean clothes, you consider leaving your walking aid. You can feel the slippery mud coating your boots, and rather than risk falling in the village center, you extend the staff and feel a comforting sense of security. You do feel grounded, now.

You join Cara once again, who you think sneaks a long, lingering glance at your staff. You tighten your fingers around the grip, following her into the bathing house built closer to the mid-center of the village. It is hemmed in by a series of smaller, thatched buildings, but it shares the border of the community near the woods. You find out why as soon as you enter.

Inside, billows of thick, white steam hang in the air like a dense fog, and it smells starkly of herbs and flowers. In the dim light, you can’t make much out, and you hesitate, pushing the bottom of your staff out so it hovers above the ground, feeling for anything you might bump into.

“Cara?”

“Hm?” Her voice, gentle and almost melodic in the post-adrenaline fueled afternoon, seems suddenly much farther away. “Oh-over here.”

You try to follow the sound, and you tense when she cups your shoulder. “I think I need help,” you murmur quietly, lacking resignation or embarrassment. Really, you are more concerned with being a bother than of any false sense of pride, and you begin relaxing when Cara pats your other arm. 

“The baths are sectioned off, and then there’s a larger hot spring built down into the ground once you’re clean. Can you get your clothes off?”

You nod, letting her set your things to the side, and you smile gratefully when she leads you to sit on a small wooden bench. It’s quick work, shucking off your boots and socks, and you begin to untie the back of your dress at the nape of your neck. It’s the old one that they gave you when you were first bought to serve at the cantina so long ago. It’s the only thing you could reconcile getting ruined during Cara’s lesson, since Din mentioned you might not want to wear anything you’d resent getting messy. You slip the sleeves off, shimmying the worn fabric down your body, and you start unbuttoning a very old tunic next.

“Can I ask you a question?” Cara says suddenly.

You blink and smile, nodding as you peel away the undershirt. The steam is so thick that you hardly feel the need for modesty, standing up and gathering the soiled garments.

“How do you know what to pick out to wear? I mean-” Cara grunts, yanking a piece of her own clothing off over her head. “I feel like if it were me, I’d wear everything backwards, or wrong colors.”

“Oh.” You unravel the tunic again, feeling around the neckline until you reach the back, turning it inside out to show her. “I sew the inside, here-either with a letter or a shape. I can see most colors, I think, but this way I know which one is which, even in the dark.” 

You think she is smiling, because the whites of her teeth remain brilliant even in the dim of the bath house. “This is Mando’s, isn’t it?”

A blush unrelated to the heat of the baths fills your cheeks, and you fold the tunic back up tightly. “He goes through them constantly,” you murmur, setting your things down where you were sitting, reaching a hand out for the wall. You can feel Cara nearby, and hear her when she tells you there’s a tub to the right.

It’s not very big, just giving you enough room to sit with your legs crossed, but it’s deep and the water is so hot that you hiss when you step in. The Razor Crest’s refresher is glacial compared to this.

“There’s some soap and oil here, if you want it.”

“Yes please,” you squeak, stomping your feet into the bottom of the metal tub and forcing yourself in. You think at first you’ll scream from the temperature, but as your back sinks into the water, you groan in relief. Every tight, tense muscle and aching joint begins to wonderfully unwind, and you slump fully down into the water. 

Cara’s voice comes from above your head, and you can hear her smile. “Good?”

“It’s wonderful.”

“I can help with your hair, if you need it.”

“I don’t think I can move anyway,” you mutter, rolling your shoulders and sighing deeply. Cara chuckles and you hear her shift behind you. Her armor is gone, and she gets to work undoing your braid with little finesse and grace. Her hands cup the back of your shoulders to ease you forward, and as she gathers the long length of your hair up, it occurs to you too late to tell her to stop.

“What-what the hell happened?” 

Cara is holding your hair in one fist, the other hand splayed over your shoulder to hold you in place. It’s the first time you’ve felt truly shy around her, and you swallow hard, bringing your legs to the side and leaning one arm over the tub as she continues blanching at your back. “Lower your voice, please,” you whisper, unsure if others are nearby who could hear.

“You look like you were dragged behind a speeder bike,” Cara whispers, but you can tell it’s through her teeth, the sounds of disgust and abject affrontal not new to you. She’s not exactly pulling your hair, but she doesn’t relax until you reach back to touch her arm. It takes her a few moments to collect herself, but when a group of women enter the building from the other side, she finally lets your hair go, drawing water up with her cupped hands to loosen some of the mud and dirt away. Her whisper is right behind your ear when she says, “I know Mando didn’t do that.”

“Of course not,” you whisper back, offense coloring your voice. You turn forward, closing your eyes and focusing on the hot water soaking your scalp and cleaning the muck away. It’s far more pleasant than to think about the deep, chasm like scars on your back. Some are layered enough that they resemble terrible burns-or so it has been told to you. “He doesn’t even know about it.” 

Cara only hesitates once in drawing water up to soak your hair. Once it’s wet, heavy and laying like a blanket over your back, she draws the soap through her wet hands until you can hear crackling bubbles. She starts at your scalp, massaging and scratching until soap suds begin to slide down your temples. 

“I thought...I thought that you two...you know.” You raise your eyebrows, but you keep your eyes shut as soap begins stinging them. You hear her sigh. “I thought he might have finally found someone to...share things with.”

Something tickles at the back of your throat, and you’re unsure what the feeling is linked to. You swallow. “He has.” 

“Oh. But he hasn’t...seen you naked?”

“No.” You consider it, realizing that no, he hasn’t-though you don’t think it’s for a lack of trying. You smirk a little, resting your chin on the side of the tub. “Kind of hard with a baby around. You have to be quick about some things.”

Cara suddenly snorts so loud you jump, sloshing water, and she laughs from her belly after that. She stands up, still laughing, and you can hear her laugh move away before coming back. “Tilt your head up,” she grins down at you, and you do as she says, shivering when she pours fresh, clean water through your hair from a pitcher. 

“What’s so funny?” you ask, a pout curving your lower lip. You part your thick curtain of hair from your face. “It’s true!”

“I just didn’t expect you to be so honest about it,” Cara says, smirking. She rinses your hair twice more before she hands you the soap bar. She moves away from you, and you’re vaguely aware of her shadow when you hear an abrupt splash nearby. She must be in another bath. “So. How’d it happen?”

Prickling heat breaks out behind your ears and up the back of your neck. You focus on dragging the soap over your skin with studious intent. It smells like wildflower honey, earthy and a distinct sweetness. You think the water must be rather murky by now, but you’re too anxious at the idea of making it out and into the spring by yourself when you can see so little. You weigh your chances breaking your neck against answering Cara’s innocent question, and you sigh, washing the bottom of your feet.

“It was a long time ago,” you say after a while, washing and rinsing, washing and rinsing. Your mind is too tired to grapple with the past’s ugliness. “It was an accident.”

“Oh.” There’s a long bit of quiet, followed by a loud splash of water and Cara releasing a big breath. She must have dunked her head under. 

You don’t have the heart to tell her about the Moff, about your indentured servitude, about the Empire’s own touch upon your life and the hurt it had left behind. So you press your own sigh down and rinse yourself off with a final wash. 

Cara helps you out of the bath house once you’re dressed in clean clothes-the tunic and pants Din had loaned you-and you feel drowsy enough to simply fall asleep wherever you might land. The sun has already dipped below the horizon, and you’re grateful for Cara’s escort back to the cottage barn as you don’t know which building is which, much less how to find your way back. As you approach, you can hear the laughter of children and adults, alike, and you perk up a little in curiosity.

“I’ll leave you to it. But listen,” Cara steps close to you, her face pale in the fading sunlight. She angles her head to the side, dark eyes blinking at you. “You’ll get it, you know. Defending yourself. You’re at a disadvantage, but you can do it, I swear,” she says, and you don’t expect it when her calloused fingers catch your cheek gently as she pushes some hair behind your ear. She smiles with her teeth. “Goodnight.”

You’re left blinking and burning with heat in your cheeks, watching her shadow shift and disappear into the darkness. Something in your chest loosens, something that had hurt all day and for several days that you weren’t aware of until now. The laughter from inside the barn shakes you from the funny feeling, and you turn towards the golden glow of light from inside that illuminates the outline of the door covering. 

The brightness creates a flare in your vision when you push the covering aside, and melodic sounds of laughter, giggles, and chuckles meet your ears. Inside, there is a small light coming from a lantern near the side of the cot that has been set up in the corner, and the Mandalorian sits on the edge, elbows balanced on his thigh cuisses and looking down at the child in the floor. He’s huddled beside a young girl around a holopad as she reads a story, you think, from the sounds of it, and just behind her, another adult sits in the floor with them. Every now and then, the little green baby tries to repeat a word, though it only ends in gibberish, making everyone laugh. 

For a moment, it almost feels as if you’ve walked into the wrong house entirely, and your heart drops, but the gleam of a newly polished beskar helmet catches your eye when Din tilts his head up toward you. His voice is tired but happy when he says your name, and everyone else turns to the door, too.

In fact, as soon as the child sees you, he pushes himself up with gusto and slaps his feet against the wooden slats in a full speed run toward you, huffing and puffing with his arms upward and out. That bit of pain in your heart deepens into a loving ache, and you set your things down near the threshold before scooping the baby up, gathering him close to your chest. He fits his head just against your neck where you are warmest, ears folded back and down as he clings at your tunic, wiggling with delight. 

“Hello.” Your misty eyes turn toward the other woman, you realize by the melodic sound of her voice. You can make out a mass of dark hair, and the blue of her clothing now that she’s standing. The young girl, in your blurry sight, seems a miniature version of her, the one from that morning that had greeted your own little one with a kiss. “We haven’t met yet, but he-” she gestures with fidgeting fingers toward Din, who still sits stoically on the edge of the bed. “-he’s talked all evening about you.”

Feeling warmth once again pool in your face, especially your ears beneath your damp hair, you smile bashfully and hold your hand out, happy when she shakes it. Her hands are not smooth, similar to Cara’s; she has seen hard work and perhaps even more than that. 

“I’m Omera, and this is my daughter, Winta,” she says, letting go of your grip to lay her hands on her own child’s shoulders. You recognize the name, and you are once again reminded of Corde when the little girl gives you a toothy grin. “And you are welcome as long as you need a place to stay.”

“That’s very kind of you,” you say softly, feeling the warm breath of the baby against your neck. His tiny hands grip at your neckline, the fabric soft and clean, and you realize he’s falling asleep. You fight a sudden onslaught of fresh tears building in your eyes, both from the tenderness of the child you hold and the compassion of your host. 

“Goodnight, Baby!” Winta whispers, reaching up to pat his back on her way out.

Omera looks back at Din as she steps through the door, nodding at him and then you once again before she disappears, and as soon as she is gone, you feel Din move swiftly to nearly crowd you, one hand under your elbow and the other brushing your cheek. He’s still in full armor, and you know he will sleep in it throughout the night, too on edge in a place that isn’t home to shed his protection.

“You look upset,” he whispers, his voice so quiet even the vocoder doesn’t pick it up. You merely hear him from beneath the helmet. 

When your cheeks lift upward in a brave smile, a tear escapes, and you swallow back a sob that threatens to break loose. “I only-I’m tired, I think,” you murmur, back, a strange mixture of emotions settling as a knot in your throat. Rather than let you go this time, Din follows you step for step as you lay the baby in the small, wooden cradle that Omera had been considerate enough to leave for you, and you feel him watching as you tuck the little sleeping child in. As soon as your arms are free, you feel Din turn you around, and it’s a smooth exchange, your gravity pulling his orbit back where you both belong. You fit yourself against his chest, wrapping yourself around him as he pulls you close. The embrace is secure, encapsulating, and his cape falls over both of your arms, hiding you from the rest of the world.


	2. Just a Little Thing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s your turn to gather flowers for the baby after an accident, and Din helps.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’ve been waiting for this chapter for so long. And it’s finally here!!! For those who have been here since the beginning, the research for this chapter is what had me looking at rings made from human teeth for a good half hour like a dozen chapters back. Crazy.
> 
> This also answers a prompt: "I was wondering, if you ever felt so inclined, you could do a little reader x din, where reader is just loving on Din without the helmet, like reassuring him that he's lovely and wonderful maybe even ft. some nose kisses?"
> 
> A huge, enormous thank you to everyone who’s been leaving comments and feedback on these last few chapters. It’s really helped me feel more confident in writing, especially during a time when my self-esteem is so low. Hearing from y’all is the best part of my day sometimes. Thank you again.

You aren’t used to sleeping in, much less sleeping in a real bed that gets a fair share of sunlight, so when your eyes begin to open, you think you might be dreaming. Half of the rusting barn is covered in shadow from the watery light bearing through the curtain covering the window, so you can’t make out much, but the soft breathing of your little one in the cradle just a few feet away tells you it’s still early. 

Beneath a thick blanket that smells and feels unfamiliar, the Mandalorian’s arm is curled around your waist, his gloved hand laying flat against the bed beneath your breast, and you can hear his gentle snoring, quieted through the helmet, just behind your own head on the pillow. His knees are tucked behind your own, and his other arm is shoved beneath the plush, overstuffed pillow you share. Outside, beyond the barn, you can hear the life of the forest-animals scuttling and digging in the dirt, birds in the trees, and distant voices of the villagers waking up. 

You are warm and safe, and you have not felt so whole since before you left Nevarro and the two children you dream of.

There is a distinct soreness in your arms and legs that you don’t recognize, and it takes your drowsy conscience a long while to drudge up the memory of Cara throwing you around like a rag doll to remember why. Shifting beneath the blanket, you turn towards the man sleeping in his armour and slip your own arm around his slender waist, pressing your cheek against the cowl that hides his neck and inhaling deeply. His beskar is still chilly against your skin where you can feel it, but you curl against him regardless. He smells like grass and soap, plants and salt, and your hand rubs at his back in soothing motions, waiting to drift off to sleep again.

Your fingers are cold, too, compared to the heat of him, and they catch at the belt around his hips. You slip your fingers beneath the band of his trousers and along the slope of his lower back, humming when you can feel the heat returning to your fingers.

From above you comes a very quiet, raspy baritone. “Good morning.”

You turn your face towards his neck, pressing your lips against the cowl in a muffled kiss by way of greeting. His own hand that had been draped beside you drags down beneath the covers, happily and lazily resting first on your thigh, then up to your hip, your waist, the side of your breast. Heat pools in your belly, slow and languid, an insistent ache you weren’t aware of before. His leather clad thumb brushes over the curve of your breast through your thick woolen dress. You’re used to keeping the chill of the Razor Crest at bay while you sleep, but now your clothes suddenly feel too heavy, too thick, and unbearable. 

You’re surprised when Din’s hand releases your breast to grab you behind your knee, hauling your leg up over his hip and rolling you beneath him in a sudden burst of energy. You suck in a gasp, the grey light filled with dust motes looking like ash and stars between you. The blanket and his own bulk block out most of it, but you don’t mind the darkness. In fact, you let your eyes fall closed at the familiar presence of him pressing your legs apart, even covered in metal and cloth, and you sigh when he brushes the top of his cool helmet against your heated forehead.

“You don’t have to be awake yet,” you whisper without an ounce of dedication. He says nothing, rolling his helmet against your brow from side to side for a moment before bracing his weight upon his elbows. When your knees tighten around his waist, curling your legs more comfortably, his weight settles against your belly and heat, and you both release a contented, comfortable sigh. You can feel him growing firm beneath his belt, and you bite your lip in deference to your own blooming want. You have no idea how anyone manages this, having full lives to live around such strong feelings. Somehow you’ve done it together, by grace or skill, dancing back and forth between the Empire’s fingers, and as intense as the pain has been, these highs are just as dizzying, just as cataclysmic. 

Neither of you make a move to uncover or remove clothing, and in fact the added friction feels terribly indulgent, something you are unused to. Din’s helmet gently fits into the crook of your neck against the pillow, every gentle shift of your bodies adding to the unspoken tease of what you both want. You don’t think, should you give in to that, you’d be able to keep quiet. Not when he’s so drowsy and handsy and sweet like this; you think you’d do anything for him when he’s this genuine and unguarded, and it’s more than you can keep to yourself.

“I want to kiss you,” you tell him, the subdued need in your voice honest and tight, creating a blanket of clouds upon the beskar of his helmet.

Din groans quietly, the vocoder muffled by the pillow, and his rocks against you, pressing you fully down into the well-worn mattress. His belt is heavy against your abdomen, and it feels strangely gratifying, relieving pressure that’s building slow and steady inside. Your hand slips up over his shoulder, fingers curling around the back of his neck where his cowl keeps him warmest, and you bite your lip as you drop your other hand between both your bodies, searching along the cool steel chest plate and further down. His entire body shudders above you, rocking unsteadily on his elbows as he wrestles his helmet up and off with one hand. It surprises you, having thought he would not remove it on an alien planet so far from the Crest. The quiet hiss of the release tastes like stale oxygen, and you make an involuntary noise when he drops it on the bed beside you both before smothering your lips with his mouth. 

His skin is just as warm as you remember, and the back of your neck prickles with excitement to feel the smooth skin of his chin and jaw as he works your lips apart with languishing, fervent kisses. Your fingers slip beneath his belt, the fitted band of his trousers trapping your palm flat against the downy hair trailing downward for your exploring fingers. 

Din rips his mouth from yours, drinking in air and shutting his eyes so tightly you think you’ve hurt him. His breathing grows labored and forced, the steel of his chest plate pressing against your breasts with every roll and dip, and he touches his brow against your own, now. His voice cracks, throaty from sleep as he bears down on you and begs, “P-Please.” 

A rippling thrill shivers from between your breasts down into your belly at the sounds he makes, and your fingers at his neck curl, drawing up higher until you can bury them in the dark curls. You still aren’t used to this, being so close and whole, and all the nights he’s spent just pressing against you haven’t been enough for your wonder to wane. You can’t see his features in the dim, even this close, but with a gentle shift of your chin, you’re able to kiss his nose. “Alright,” you whisper, breathing in the scent of his skin once more. Your own eyes flutter heavily when he groans again. “T-Tell me if I...need to stop.”

The noise he makes is between a groan and a wheeze, and you feel like it’s a kind of encouragement, so you press your hand further down, biting your lip. You feel smooth, hot skin against your palm, and you flush with heat at how firm and heavy he feels in your grip. It seems clumsy to you, and you listen carefully to every sound he makes, every hiss or groan causing your hand to twitch or tighten. When you draw your feet up closer against the back of his legs, allowing more room, he lets out a gust of air, dropping his head to the side of your neck and whispering an urgent string of filth that you’re almost too shocked when you hear it to go on. 

You turn your face toward his, and you think he might still have his eyes shut when you begin to kiss his nose again, then his cheek, light fluttering things that cool the building heat beneath his collar. 

“I-I n-need to do s-something for you,” Din pants, his mouth seeming too clumsy to make the words from all the tension he holds in his shoulders, his arms, his back, and your smile is effortless as you kiss the side of his mouth.

“I got what I want,” you whisper against his cheek, still smiling as you dip your hand up and down his length again. His entire back rolls, and you can feel where his fingers are balled into fists beneath the pillow. His breathing is harsh, disturbing some of your hair, and your other hand moves from his neck to cup the side of his face. You guide his mouth back to your own in another deep, indulgent kiss, and only between sips of his mouth do you murmur, “Now it’s your turn.” 

Din pulls back from you then, just enough that the tip of his nose brushes yours. You can feel how his hooks down a little where yours is a bit rounder, but it’s how dark his eyes are that draw your face up. You can just make out the lines on the outside of his eyes, crinkling and vibrant in his happiness, and your heart thumps hard against your breast with the way his cheeks pull when he smiles like this. He presses his forehead to yours again and whispers, “Your pleasure is mine,  _ riduur’ika _ .” 

A new name, you think with scintillating warmth, drawing your hand back up across the soft planes of his abdomen. Using your knees pressing on either side of his slender waist, you tenderly press him up and over by his pauldrons, both your hands warming the beskar as you palm them. Din allows you to roll him over onto his back, leaving you crouching over him, and he wastes little time pushing up the hem of your dress, the buttery leather covering his hands soft against your thighs. Your face is full of heat at the unfamiliar position, and you rest both of your hands on his stomach, tilting your head down at him like a bird from its perch.

He watches you contentedly before he smiles again, and in the dim morning light, you’re struck by how handsome he is, all dark curls and golden skin. You don’t know if you’ll ever grow used to it, to this, seeing him bare of beskar and burden. 

“Like this?” he asks quietly, cupping your bottom and bringing you closer against his trousers. The hard length you’d been handling with tender clumsiness now takes the breath from you, and your own eyes flutter shut, nodding drowsily. 

“Y-Yes,” you whisper, leaning forward to balance your weight on one hand and slipping your own hand between your legs. “Please.”

There’s a quiet urgency between both his and your own hands working to loosen his belt, and you think to glance toward the cradle to make sure the child is still sleeping across the barn before helping him push his trousers down. Your heart trills in your breast, a nervous, excited tempo that leaves you short of breath by the time he pushes inside you. Dropping your head down to bite at the fabric against his neck, his own groan is muffled against your hair. 

His hands are unflinchingly tight at your lower back, and it matches the tension and tightness you feel, thighs trembling as you sink lower in a slow, staggering ease, puffing air that leaves fog against the beskar on his chest. For a moment, an agonizingly long pull, you think it’s too much, the words to  _ stop _ bubbling in your throat because why does it feel like  _ this _ ? Why does it feel like so much  _ more _ ? You feel good, you feel full, and when Din’s fingertips press into the base of your back, nudging you forward, you suck in a breath at the dizziness of taking all of him.

“Tell me if I-if I do something wrong,” you whisper, biting your lower lip just before you experiment and rock your weight forward. Immediately Din pushes his head back into the pillow, his eyes screwing shut in bliss, and you think he might leave bruises from how fiercely he grabs at your waist. So you do it again, and again, breathing low and forcing yourself to focus on the feeling of being joined, of being guided back and forth in slow, close movements. 

“N-Never, you c-can’t-” Din chokes, one of his hands dragging you down by the back of your head to press his forehead to yours, bodies beginning to gain a rhythm that matches the pounding of your pulse in your temples. Your hair falls to one side, shielding your faces from the light. “ _ Gar serim bal jate ast. _ ”

One of his hands captures the side of your face, tender and sweet, and you lose yourself in the wonderful motions, skin perspiring beneath your rucked up dress and along the sides of your face, only wanting more. You turn your face toward his hand, tears pricking your eyes and muffling a whimper into his palm. Din grabs hold of your chin and jaw, holding your head against his shoulder, and his other grasps your bare thigh, anchoring you against him. Everything changes when he suddenly thrusts up, and it’s all you can do to swallow your shout. He anticipates this, you think, because he’s quick to smother your sounds behind the leather of his glove. It leaves you feeling blissful, weightless, and handled. You want to do more, to be of some use in this shared chase, but it’s all you can do to hold onto his pauldrons when he’s drawing out and in so savagely that you end up crying behind his fingers. 

Your eyes drift open just enough to see when he brings his other hand to his mouth, using his teeth to yank off his glove and slipping his hand between you. You’re unsure what exactly he’s doing until you feel his touch where you need it so much more, and the shock of pleasure it brings nearly hurts. It’s so much, too much, too much to stop, and it becomes hard to breathe against the thick fabric gathered at his neck when you’re panting so.

When all of your muscles seize and you see a mirage of color behind your closed eyes, you press your face down against his shoulder to keep from screaming. You aren’t aware when you grind against him until he suddenly hauls you over on your side, keeping your leg thrown over his waist. Everything is dark with your back pressed against the wall, and you feel like a doll, pliable as he takes his own pleasure brutal and shaking thrusts, whispering his beautiful language against your neck until everything falls away. You are left with peace, worn and exhilarated, damp with sweat and arousal. Your hair sticks to the sides of your face, and your dress is wrinkled from how it’s haphazardly tossed up around your hips.

Din does not move, not even to separate yourselves, and you don’t have a mind to bother with it, either. In fact, all you really want is to trace his face while it’s bare, so you do. Bringing your fingertips up to dance along the side of his cheek, his temple, tucking some sweat soaked curls behind his ear. He opens his eyes after a while, meeting your own gaze. 

It’s certainly the last time that day you can meet anyone’s eyes, because all you can think of is if anyone heard you. 

Cara notices your starry eyed, flaky concentration waning early in your practice, growing frustrated when you miss steps or turns in your sparring. She was encouraged by how deft you are with your staff, even suggesting at one point Din should sharpen the end for you, but all you can concentrate on is the sound of his hoarse voice bantering back with Cara. Or rather, how his voice became hoarse.

The worst is when Omera finds you later, down at the creek with a few other villagers washing clothes. 

You’re sitting near the creek’s edge, mindful of the baby toddling around the area to pull and yank at weeds that he brings back to you proudly. You smile and nod at each one, praising him until there’s a small bouquet of dandelions, ragweed, and river reeds near your bag. Other villagers gather water upstream while you and more are downstream washing clothes and dishes. A few small children, barely able to toddle on pudgy baby legs waddle naked in and out of the creek farther down, and the mingling sounds of gossip and laughter ease your guilty conscience. 

You’re in the middle of rinsing soap from your woolen dress when you sense someone approaching you from behind, and you sit back on your heels to turn around quickly, one soapy hand grappling for your beskar in the grass.

“Sorry,” Omera says, setting a woven basket down with dirty clay dishes in it. She moves lower than you along the stream, and her smile is nervous until your fingers release your walking aid. “I hope I didn’t scare you.”

“Just a little,” you admit, thinking of the last time someone did that, how they had meant you harm and hurt. You look back down at the thick, wet fabric in your hands, swallowing a growing knot in your throat. “It’s alright.”

Both of you take to silence, and you go back to busying yourself with the few articles of clothing you and Din had brought from the Razor Crest. A gentle but insistent tug on your dress makes you look over to find two big watery black eyes blinking up at you. The child sniffles pitifully, pointing insistently with his other three fingered hand toward Omera, and you frown until you can make out the clump of dark green as the source of his distress. 

“Oh, dear,” you murmur, leaning over to lift the edge of Omera’s basket where it currently squishes most of the baby’s “flowers” he has brought you. Bringing them out, you can see they’re wilted and completely flat, and the child at your elbow begins to whimper and pat at them, fat tears dripping down onto the collar of his tiny robe. “It’s alright, my heart, we’ll find some new ones,” you whisper to him, lifting him up in your lap and kissing the tracks on his cheeks. “As many as you want. How about that?”

“What’s wrong?” Omera asks, doing a double take when she realizes the child is upset.

“Oh, it’s-it’s just a little thing, nothing to worry about.” You don’t want her to feel bad for trampling the weeds, but you don’t want to make your little one feel worse by saying it’s nothing, either. You nod down toward the mangled pile of brambles with a sheepish smile. “He likes to pick flowers. For his father, for-for me,” you add, blushing to remember the first time he’d done so, when Din had shown his anger out of worry for the first time. How much he cared, how he always has.

“These aren’t really fl-” Omera trails off, glancing at the sniffling infant who has buried his face in your chest and begins to hiccup. You can see it in the tilt of her head and the anxious tap of her fingers on the basket’s edge as she hesitates. “I see. I’m so sorry,” she adds, and you look down to see the child peeking from around one drooped ear. You rub the base of his hear soothingly. “There is a field not far from here, with many more. All different colors, even.”

“Oh? Then we’ll have to take a walk and look, won’t we?” You give him a little bounce in your arms, and he sniffles pitifully, breath trembling with his broken heart, and you coo and hold him closer. It is nearer to his nap time than not, so you know it will help him to rest for a while. You mouth a quiet thank you, and Omera’s shoulders visibly sink in relief when she sees no real harm is done. 

“Have you been traveling with them long?” she asks, taking out several of the plates and bowls to clean them in the river. You shift the baby in your arm, using a free hand to lay the wet clothes on a rock nearby. “Only, it hasn’t been so long since they were last here, the Mandalorian and his little one.”

_ When I wasn’t with them _ , you realize, recalling Din saying the village owed him a favor. You turn back to the socks you intend to wash next. The grass is folded down where you were sitting, and you place the baby beside you, pinching his ear lovingly before getting back to your chore. “A few months, I think,” you say, knowing full well the exact time and day he walked into that dirty cantina for a talk with a criminal associate. 

The similarities between then and now leave you winded as you think on it, and you blink very hard to keep yourself from getting lost in the quiet reminder that you could still be there. 

“He hired me as a caretaker originally.” The idea makes you smile now, the far off days of learning to fly, of earning his trust, of wondering if he smiled or frowned beneath his helmet and gauging his moods by the draw of his shoulders or when he tapped his boot with impatience. The child leans over the bank of the creek, flapping his little hand in the shallow water. You scrub the socks with a bar of soap, working out dirt before laying them out to dry next before getting another of Din’s tunics.

“Oh. Do you do more now?” Omera asks, her long dark hair catching the light. It nearly has a blue tint to it, like the wing of a raven. You are struck with a sharp kind of grief when you think of braiding Corde’s hair, how such a little thing had been a solace.

So many ordinary things had been more than that, and they come back to you like clouds passing through. Tatooine and your injury, and how the Mandalorian had killed a fellow bounty hunter to save you and the baby. You consider now how he’d warned you away from the carbonite freezer and his bounties, recall the changes he’d made by turning on the lighting board of the control panels in the cockpit so you could see more, how he’d cleaned out the captain’s quarters so you wouldn’t bump into things going to bed at night. You remember him stroking your hair and removing his helmet while you slept, how he’d protected you in the bar in Canto Bight, and how he had gathered up your broken spirit in those fathier stables. 

Only to give it back to you, shiny and new, in the heart of his peoples’ home.

You hear your name and realize your hands have been holding the shirt submerged in the creek while you stare into space. You look over to find Omera looking towards you, you think, her image blurry against the green spray of the forest around her. 

“Are you alright?” She moves closer, crouching beside you and touching your shoulder with concern and kindness. “I can take you back, if you need it.”

“Oh, I’m...just thinking,” you force the words out, resisting the instinct to insist otherwise. The baby touches your knee, drawing your attention. His big, dark eyes are so sweet that you are only slightly mystified how he’s dragging a flopping, slippery fish by the tail in his other hand behind him.

“I wanted to ask if...if you and him are-” Omera pulls her hand back, keeping her voice low and scooting closer until you’re side by side. You’re of a similar height, but somehow she seems bigger, taller, more noble than you feel. She pushes a lock of hair behind her ears on both sides of her face. “I asked him to stay, before...and I was hoping to ask again.”

Several things fall into place, like pebbles skipping across a smooth pond, and in that moment, you know what Din would say to her, because you know him better than you know yourself. And that gentle, quiet truth, fossilized in your foundation, reassures you of what you have been feeling, something beyond love.

It shouldn’t have taken Omera, a kind woman but otherwise a stranger as far as you know her, to make you realize why that tender place in your heart has not stopped aching so much since Din nearly died. You press your palm to the center of your chest, that quiet pain seeming to open up and then release, like a flower having waited until the hour of the ghost to bloom.

“You might ask him,” you tell her gently, lowering your gaze to the child beside you and feeling nothing but certainty. “But I’m afraid his answer will be the same.” 

You know it is not what she wanted to hear, but the interesting thing that you find is Omera only smiles, bowing her head in acceptance, and leaves you to gather your clothes in peace. You hurriedly turn to the child, separating him from the grossly large fish against his wishes, and gather your laundry.

Walking back to the village, you know your eyesight has not improved, has not grown clearer or healed the scars the sun left behind, but you feel as if you knew what to look for now. In fact, you do know, and you move quickly up the steps of the barn, throwing the curtain aside and setting to work to finish your tasks.

After the clothes are hung up and the baby is asleep, you head toward the cottage to find Winta, asking her to watch over your little one while he sleeps. You want to make sure you have the words in order, your feelings and thoughts all slotted together neatly. 

The beskar is cold and heavy in your hand, reliable and grounding you as your strides become more confident, climbing through the fence into the field behind Omera’s cottage. You intended to pick some of the flowers for the baby to surprise him when he wakes, and the rhythmic thump of your boots and the staff against the grass help bring order to your mind.

It would be easier to bury your fingers in the pages of your book, your most treasured possession since Din gave it to you, rather than acknowledge what you are feeling and what you have felt since leaving the snow covered planet behind. Leaving what almost happened, but has followed you against your will. 

_ And we are not people who don’t do something just because we’re afraid. Are we? _

You force yourself further out from the village, stumbling only twice and threatening to roll your ankle when your boot slips on a rock. The blurred carpet of the world turns from green to a slow wash of trickling colors, yellows and oranges and deeper crimson blooms begin to appear the further you trek. You slow your pace near the bordering copse of pines, their sharp, cool scent against the honey sweetness of the flowers refreshing. You bring your beskar in front of you, planting the bottom firmly into the cushion of the earth with both hands, and you take a deep breath. 

Seeing the movement of your reflection against the steel humbles you.

The truth you have been given, like an unwilling dunk beneath icy water, is that you have been irrevocably changed. You are not the weak, small thing you had been. You’ve not been that for some time now, and it occurs to you, as you tighten your knuckles until they’re white around the staff, that you want this bounty just as much as Din because you want to live your life with the little child you’ve fallen so deeply in love with. 

Because you love both of them, your clan, more than yourself, more than anyone. You had not thought when he had made space for you in his life that you had been carving out space for the both of them in yours, too. 

That part of you that had only kept the memories that hurt you, the ones of your mother and father, were now overshadowed by real, tangible things you could touch and feel and love again. 

You slowly slide down the length of your staff onto your knees, sniffling as you feel the petals of the tiny orange and yellow flowers growing wild in the pasture. You lay the staff to the side in the grass, and you’re aware of someone’s footsteps approaching from behind, purposefully loud enough to not scare you when his fingers brush the crown of your head.

You expect a gentle reprimand for going off by yourself, but instead, Din crouches beside you and seems to understand what you are doing. He removes his vibroblade from the sheath at his boot, the same one he’d killed Toro Calican with, in fact, and he leans forward to cup one hand around your own where it holds a handful of flower stems. With the other, he cuts them cleanly, mindful not to disturb any other flora, and though there is a knot at the base of your throat with all the things you want to say in one big breath, you hold it tight for just a bit longer.

Following you around the pasture, Din gently helps you pick which flowers you find suitable, wordless and warm beside you until you have so many blossoms that you can’t hold any more. Their pollen covered stamens leave sparkling dust on your pants and boots, and you feel yourself smile when he reaches up to his cowl and begins to unfasten his cloak. It brushes through the grass, heavy and thick, as he lays it down, and your smile widens as he helps you lay the blooms down. You plop yourself down, crossing your ankles beside you as your hands begin sifting through the different plants. Some have fat, plush petals while others are thin and bell shaped, drooping elegantly in colors of gold and white and red. Easier colors to see in the fading light of twilight, and you feel Din stretching out beside you. 

“We need to talk,” he says, his voice couched in a drowsy kind of peace.

“I know.” You swallow that painful knot with relief, your smile softening as he leans back slightly on one hand. It’s bare, without its glove, fingers curling in the grass, and you wonder if he wishes he could taste the clean air, the plants, the water, all without the creed. Your eyes drop to the small bunch of flowers in your hands, some pinks and oranges with speckled velvety petals, and you push yourself up to your knees, shifting to lay back with your head pillowed on his knee. It keeps you in one place, keeps you from floating away when his hand drops to rest across your stomach. His thumb traces little patterns that are soothing enough to send you to sleep.

And he’s watching you as you feel around on the cape to find his glove, picking it up. You start placing flowers in the leather, using it as a container for the bundle of blooms you have chosen for your little boy, slipping their stems through the different fingers so they won’t get bent. 

“Winta told me their harvest is ending, and there will be a festival with paper lanterns and bonfires that burn all night,” you say breathlessly, brimming with the need to tell him everything. You fiddle with the flowers uselessly as an excuse to not meet his visor with your eyes. “A celebration of a year’s work and bounty. It’s a chance to reflect and give thanks,” you take a deeper breath, setting the glove aside and laying your hand on top of his own. His skin is still so warm. “A time to commit to promises before you make them.”

Din says nothing, listening close even as your voice fades in and out of a whisper. You slip your fingers around the back of his hand, clutching it like a child holds a favored toy for safety, and you bring it to your heart. 

“I’d like to come back one day, to see it,” you add, drawing his hand up further to the side of your face so you can rest your cheek in the leather softened valley of his palm. “If we are not on some other grand adventure.”

“You haven’t had enough?” Din asks, his other hand reaching up to brush a twirling lock of your hair off your shoulder. He doesn’t seem to mind you’ve caught his other. It reminds you of an old story the Moff’s wife told you, of a rock-lion with a thorn in its paw, needing to calm its anger and hurt to allow another being, smaller and weaker, to remove it. 

You know what you will answer, but you let your eyes finally drift up to the visor. “Have you?”

Din’s helmet shifts, leaning down to look at you closer. “Sometimes,” he admits, his voice breaking on the words with quiet honesty. “There are days I wake up and wish my back didn’t hurt from sleeping in an old chair or a too worn bed. That we didn’t live job to job, and I could find a place safer and quieter for us.”

Your lips tremble on the smile that fights to get out, and you cup his hand closer to your cheek. “And other times?” you ask, somehow both hoping and knowing what he will say.

“Most times, I know I would miss it. The hunt, the chase,” he murmurs through the vocoder, and you feel his other hand cup the crown of your head like something precious. “The reward.”

Your sightless eyes drift away from his helmet, flickering up toward the sky painted in shades of twilight. Though you can’t make out the details, the colors are swirled in pinks, oranges, violets, and deeper indigo, to the west. You take a deep breath, letting it out slowly and letting your eyes shut.

“When I was young, I remember being so...so hurt that I couldn’t see little things. Clouds, stars, handwriting, the carving on a piece of furniture. The embroidery on a dress. It was always building in the back of my throat, this scream I couldn’t let out. Something so unfair happened to me,” you whisper, feeling that deepened ache in your chest open, and Din’s thumb brushes the top of your cheek. You open your eyes. “I had to hold onto good things, the things I remembered, and I think...I was so busy doing that, I didn’t do anything good for a long time.”

“You-”

“L-Let me finish, please,” you whisper, holding his hand tighter against your cheek. He hesitates, before nodding once, very slow. You let out another slow breath. “I’ve heard these stories about people being changed by a big event. Something monumental that left them irrevocably different, for better or worse, and I’ve been waiting for that. I thought perhaps, it might have been when you paid my slaver’s debt. Or when I learned how to fly,” you laugh a little, still in wonder that you can  _ do _ that. “The first time the baby reached or ran to me, or the first time I made you laugh.”

Din seems to grow still as stone, his visor unmoving from your face, and you do your best to meet his eyes through the smoky glass. “But all of those were good. So good that they turned me into a sum of so many parts of myself I didn’t know I had, and I realize that I’ve loved you a very long time. But when you weren’t breathing-” You have to steady yourself, to steady Din with one hand pressed firm against his hand near your cheek, the other grasping a fistful of your dress. “-I realized how losing you meant I wouldn’t just be without you, but I...I’d be without the best parts of myself, too.”

Din says nothing, but you know he sees the tiny tear rolling from the corner of your eye, down your temple and into your hair. You wait in the silence, which has grown into a night bloom, a living thing twining its way around you both so that nothing else can touch you for these precious moments. 

But then, he moves, a man of action rather than words. He takes his hand from your face, and you aren’t sure what he’s doing until you hear the release of the seal underneath his helmet, and you see when it reveals the golden planes of his face, the curling, fluffy dark hair that hides beneath. His firm hands, fluent in violence and wrath, lift you up by your shoulders with only tenderness. You can’t make out anything more, but you can hear the catch in his breath and feel his lips trembling when he gathers one of your hands between both of his own, as if cradling a newborn bird.

“I can’t…” Your heart nearly stops completely, watching him bend over your hand to kiss the inside of your palm. You can feel his tears slipping between your fingers, and you are suddenly terrified of what will happen next, a sickly anxiety worming its way in your belly when he draws one hand back. 

“I can’t believe you’re real sometimes,” he rasps, a broken sound of joy only found in grief, and he laughs or weeps, you aren’t sure. You part your lips to speak, but the scratch of his facial hair against the inside of your fingers stills you. “Sometimes, I think I dreamt you.”

Something small, firm, and smooth presses into your hand that he holds. You touch it with your fingertips, the ring pale in color and light in weight like a cloud. You believe your heart does stop then, and you look back to him for some kind of reassurance, some kind of evidence that you are still you, still awake. 

It’s when you touch his face, how his eyes flutter closed and he smiles as only you have ever felt, that you know the answer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mando'a Translations:
> 
> Ridurr'ika - Little wife
> 
> Gar serim bal jate ast. - You are goodness itself.


	3. Double the Bet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After vows are said and promises are made, the Mandalorian takes Cara Dune to Coruscant and shares a plan of action with you.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so excited for this next sequence, since it'll involve my favorite episode. Thank you again so, so much for your lovely comments and feedback. It's really encouraging as I push forward with this story!

_ Mhi solus tome, mhi solus dar'tome, mhi me'dinui an, mhi ba'juri verde. _

We are one when we are together, we are one when we are apart, we share all, we will raise warriors.

Din whispers those words in the fading twilight, crumbling on his knees before you when he asks you to be his wife. You think the beskar might fall from his body, revealing this soft, dear man beneath whom you love beyond measure or token. In between hushed kisses and pressing your brows together, he teaches you how to say your first sentence in Mando’a, and he laughs tearfully when you tap the words back to him in  _ Dadita _ . He tries to put the ring upon your finger, his hands free of their leather gloves and trembling, nearly dropping it in his shy excitement. And he kisses each finger, both wrists and palms, and then you, and it is like the fresh air has given him new life, the way he won’t let you go, the way he breathes you in and holds you close. 

You want to tell him you that you don’t need vows sworn for him to have your loyalty, your honesty and your love, for he’s had all that and more far longer than even you realize. But for a man of so few words, he seems to relish in giving you this. Promises and oaths, the true blood of Mandalorians, define his honor, and now you are taken into that fold, another sacred branch upon his heart. 

Once you have returned to the barn, finding your little green infant chasing a frog at Cara’s boots, the two of you dump the cape open and let the picked blooms shower over the baby who shrieks in unmatched joy. He spends the next few hours running through the barn, picking petals and sneezing and giggling from the pollen. It’s only when you start to clean up the mess that you notice the ring upon your finger is not made of gold or silver, nor of beskar. It’s white with shadows of gold and grey, and only once your little boy is tucked into his borrowed cradle do you ask Din where he found such a thing.

“Not found. Made-by Kuiil,” he says quietly, unlacing his boots and looking up at you from his seat on the bed. It is with surprising swiftness he removes his helmet as soon as you both pin the door’s partition down once your little clan is alone, and your heart flutters when you can see his bare face so close and open. His eyes are dark, like the sheen of obsidian, and his smile is a quirk of a thing that makes you feel a little dizzy. You move to sit beside him and begin removing his bandolier. “I asked and offered to pay, but he wouldn’t accept,” he glances toward you as you glance down at your hand. “Ivory.”

“What?” You blink, looking up at him.

“From the Mudhorn,” Din says, and it takes you several long moments of silence to realize what he means. You glance back at your hand before looking at him again, but he stands and removes his armor with care, his cloak hanging across the nearby chair to dry after being laid on in the grass. His shirt slips upward a little in the back when he removes his belt, and you bite your lip. “He traded with the Jawas for it, after they scavenged the animal.”

“That is quite a favor to ask,” you say softly, touched that someone so dear to both of you would go to such trouble, but Din turns to look at you.

“It is not tradition to give rings between warriors,” he explains, his sock clad feet silent as he steps closer to the bed and crouches in front of you. You want to ask why he feels he can undress here, now, but you are a little distracted by his soft, dark curls and how nice he smells. His warm hands cup the tops of both of your knees like a silent invitation for you to return his touch. You happily lift your fingers to his jaw, tracing his cheeks, sinking your hands into his curls. His eyes close, you think, and he leans into your hands, mumbling, “Can make the gloves uncomfortable.” 

“It will never leave my finger,” you swear, smiling and bumping your nose to his. The crinkles on either side of his eyes leave you happier than you can ever remember feeling, and it takes little effort for the both of you to crawl into bed. A hay stuffed mattress has never felt so good when you have Din’s warm chest to lay your cheek on, and you drift to sleep with his fingers in your hair, listening to the deep beating of his heart.

When you open your eyes, you don’t recognize where you are. Your boots are sinking into mud in the middle of an open clearing, the sky so cloudless that the sun hurts your eyes. The air smells of rock and petrichor, dry like the desert during a rainy season, and for a blistering moment, your stomach cramps, afraid you are back on your home planet, in the wilderness.

But then, you hear it. You feel it.

A huge, terrible gust of wind blows the hair from your back over both shoulders, and you drop your head forward, bringing both hands to cover the scream building in your throat. Your muscles lock up, your entire body trembling. Something thumps against the ground hard enough to shake the earth, big enough to rattle your teeth. And it’s getting closer.

You remember your father whispering to close your eyes before he is gunned down by troopers, before the worst thing to ever happen to you happened. Blaster residue mingles with the copper of his blood in the air as he died staring at you hiding beneath his bed. On instinct, you jerk your hands upward towards your eyes, but your breath catches when you see your own hands, blurring in and out of focus. 

There is a great, rumbling growl that feels like it now stands at your back, and you ball your fingers into fists.  _ W _ _ e are not people who don’t do something just because we’re afraid. Are we? _

As you turn, your vision sharpens and blurs sporadically, but you don’t need your eyesight to see the hulking mudhorn standing close enough to touch. Its breathing is labored, heaving and sputtering, and all your fears flee when you realize the beast is hurt, is suffering from the huge bloody wound near its neck. Reaching out, your hand gently touches the famed horn, sliding up and down in a soothing motion. Mud caking its woolly fur sloughs off as you pet above its nostrils, and its eyes grow heavy. When it falls, collapsing onto its side, you see the knife wound closer, the tear through the flesh that bleeds freely, and tears begin to pool at your lashes. 

Remembering the tale told to you, the decision to sit beside the ugly animal is easy to make, and you continue stroking her dirty fur, watching as her eyes fall closed.  _ Another mother protecting her baby _ , you think, watching her horn sink until her entire body gives its final shuddering breath. 

When you wake up, you’re alone.

The barn is full of sunlight, though, with every curtain pulled back to let fresh air in. Sitting up takes all the strength you have, your body sore from Cara’s training, and you blink away the bleary melancholy of your dream. Your eyes drop to the cloudy outline of your wedding band on your finger, and the joy of swearing yourself to the man you love now hemmed with a peculiar loss. 

In the chair nearest you is a fully packed bag, and across from that, you can just make out the outline of the empty cradle. 

Beyond the chair, through the open threshold, you make out the familiar blurry outline of the Mandalorian. It only takes you a moment to find your boots, and you drift quietly around, combing your hair with your fingers and doing your best to wake up. You leave your walking aid behind, using your hands to guide you outside. 

Fully clothed and armed, Din turns to look up at you as you join him, leaning on his pauldron for balance as you lower yourself to sit next to him on the front steps. Your little one is just as sleep addled as you, laying in his father’s arms and clutching at one of his gloved fingers. The morning is still early, just barely turning from purple to blue in the sky, and you press your knees against Din’s, resting your cheek on his shoulder. 

“I packed everything up. We need to move on before the trail goes cold.”

“I know.”

Din is quiet for a while, and you both listen to the sounds of frogs and insects, of birds and villagers alike as the world around you wakes up. He turns his helmet towards you, and you can feel the careful weight of the beskar helm pressing against your crown. “Will you miss it here?” he whispers, his vocoder humming with the low timbre of his voice.

You can hear the sounds of Winta and Omera laughing and talking from inside their cottage not so far away, of the sloshing water in the krill ponds, of the woodland animals and insects calling out in their early morning song. The quiet snores of your little boy in your husband’s arms is the most precious, though.

“Not as much as I miss the covert.”

The helmet’s weight disappears, and you look up into the dark smoke of his visor, hoping you are holding those lovely dark eyes behind the glass. It feels charged, his gaze, direct and meaningful even if you can’t see it. You felt it this way only once before, when he held you in the fathier barn after days of pain and uncertainty. 

From down the little dirt path leading to the barn, you hear Cara call out, “Morning, Mando!”

“I love you.”

The simple declaration rocks you nearly down the short flight of steps, and your eyes widen at the Mandalorian as he continues to stare at you resolutely, not even moving when the little drooling boy asleep in his arms snorts. Your smile wobbles, a delicate thing balanced between joy and disbelief. You cup the back of his neck and press your brow gently upward to his helmet, smiling when you hear the trembling in his breath. You allow him to pull back as Cara nears, and you lift the baby into your own arms, standing on shaky legs.

“Good morning, Cara,” you call out only when you know you have control of your voice. Din’s hand settles at your lower back like an anchor, and you smile giddily in welcome as the ex-shock trooper comes to stop at the base of the stairs, propping one of her boots on the bottom step. She has a bag slung over one shoulder and knocks her head to the side with a smile.

“Time to say goodbye. We got a ride to catch.”

Din heaves a sigh before standing up, too, and you watch as he follows his friend toward the cottage to give thanks to your host. You return inside the barn, making the most of your time by changing into the spare pants Din loaned you and one of his old tunics. You look over at the little child sitting on the bed, rubbing the sleep from his eyes, and whining softly at being woken. 

Once you’ve slipped your cloak on, the thick fur soft and warming you quickly, you pick him back up and cuddle him close to you, smiling when he buries his face against your neck. He clings to you all morning, through the walk back to the Razor Crest, all through take off protocols and breeching the atmosphere, and even when you take the pilot’s seat so Din can have the freedom to move around while he and Cara begin to map out a plan for capturing the bounty.

Running your fingers over the illuminated controls, you press an idle kiss to the top of the baby’s fuzzy head, reminding yourself where the different switches are that you might need to pull in case of an emergency. The cockpit is still and quiet, and you relish the peace of the soft hum of the engines. After a few moments of stillness, though, you feel the need to occupy yourself so you reach beneath the control board where Din keeps your book tucked beneath for the times that you join him late at night and can’t sleep.

_ The University of Sanbra Guide to Intelligent Life _ cracks open with a satisfying strain of leather and paper, and you tuck the baby in the crook of your arm so you can balance the book on your lap. You had marked different sections that Corde and Venka had asked you to read to them more than once, both of them intrigued by so many races and species. A smile lifts your face, remembering Corde declaring she wanted to meet a Cerean, insisting they would have answers to her questions.

A tight knot begins to form in your throat remembering the little ones you left behind, and you blink hard against the burning beneath your lashes. Pressing your face against the wrinkly brow of the baby, you take a deep breath, forcing air in your lungs and the tightness out. His little hands pat at your face, and you listen to his concerned gurgles, as if he might take away your sadness by sheer force of will alone.

And you wonder then, about something that has never occurred to you. Sitting up, you gaze down at the baby in your arms who only looks back with his large, twinkling eyes, and you spread your hand over the open book. None of the species you have read about so far shares anything in common with your little one, but you wonder...

Din told you he doesn’t know anything about the child’s parentage, homeworld, or if there are any others like him. Flipping the pages, you try sorting through the index, which proves to be unhelpful. All you know for sure is that the baby is older than you or Din while still being an infant, yet he understands your language, intentions, and feelings. He reacts when you’re happy or sad, he knows the difference between safety and danger. And he has a power you cannot explain.

Surely someone has documented something about his kind. 

“I need a holopad or something-” you mutter, looking around and finding nothing. You remember the paper you’d bought, though, and take a deep breath before setting your book aside and bringing the baby up against your shoulder. You set him in the temporary cradle that occupies the co-pilot seat, and a small afterthought of making some kind of sling for the child passes your mind as you leave the cockpit and descend the ladder into the hull, only to hear two different voices strained with grunting.

Blinking in the dimness of the hull that’s only lit up by meager lights and the open weapons’ locker, you can make out Din and Cara. They’re sitting across from each other, leaning over a shared crate, both of them clasping the other’s hand. They’re straining, trying to overturn the other’s arm, and you blow out a long stream of air.

“Oh blessed Maker, not this again,” you mutter. The last time Din arm wrestled someone, it nearly broke him in half across a cantina bar in Canto Bight, and you remember that very clearly.

“Easy money,” Cara grits through her teeth, reminding you more of a wolf than a woman in how she grins. You cross your arms, unimpressed with their needless display of strength. Cara’s tongue pokes out and wets her lips. “I got you Mando.”

“Care to double the bet?” While Din is straining, he doesn’t sound out of breath. They’re at a deadlock, and you frown. You hardly had enough money for fuel, much less to pay Cara for her reconnaissance, and you’ve never known the Mandalorian to gamble away the few credits he has to his name.

“I’ll never understand gambling.”

“It’s how I make most of my credits these days,” Cara shoots you a grin and wink, and you fight the flush of heat in your face. “I’ll get you something pretty if I win.”

Now fully blushing, you huff, “I wouldn’t accept!”

“She isn’t winning.”

You break into a smile at the petulant tone, watching over Din’s shoulder with renewed interest. “She looks like she’s winning,” you whisper to him, and you bite down on a grin when he leans forward very suddenly, pushing all of his strength into one arm. 

“ _ Gev ibac _ ,” Din growls in your direction, and though you don’t know exactly what he’s saying, you can’t keep the giggle down from how annoyed he grows between the two of you. To Cara’s credit, she doesn’t even flinch at the imposed push of strength, the bulge of her muscles remaining engaged and firm from wrist to shoulder. 

“I thought you two were planning out how to capture the bounty.” 

There’s a silent beat before Cara admits, “She’s right.”

Another tense moment of silence follows, and neither of them disengage. A sigh escapes you, and your eyes roll. “Really? Just-” 

Everything in the hull is suddenly thrown on its side, and you are thrown right off your feet. All the crates in the hull slide to the left, slamming into the wall, and the doors to the weapons’ locker bang shut as the Razor Crest swings into a hard dip. Cara is thrown from her seat, rolling across the floor before she scrambles out of the way of several heavy crates careening towards her. 

Your back hits the door of the weapons’ locker, and for a moment, you’re so disoriented that you can’t make heads or tails of your surroundings. Din grapples toward the ladder, bumping and sliding into things as he hauls himself up onto the upper deck. Heart pounding, you push yourself up and climb quickly after him, grabbing the hole ridden hem of his cape. He grunts when the Crest takes another unhinged swing in its flight path, and you tug yourself up the ladder until you can get your footing enough to climb up after him. 

The child is squealing as he bats the center stick around with glee, and Din nearly hurtles through the observation window trying to grab him up. Another swing of the control and you both careen into the wall, but Din manages to grasp the baby around his middle with one hand and pull the lever back evenly. He hoists the child up in the air above his helmet so you can take him, quickly regaining control to steady the ship.

The Crest settles with a clamoring shudder, and you hold the baby close to your chest, sinking against the back of the pilot’s chair as Din cancels several blaring emergency protocols. As soon as the alarms stop and the cautionary lights cease flashing, he slumps back into his seat with a loud sigh.

There’s a long stretch of silence where the child in your arms simply giggles and burps, his tiny clawed fingers shuffling through the long strands of your hair playfully. You press a kiss to his wrinkly forehead, hiding a little smile against his skin, and you support his back as he begins to try and crawl up your shoulder. After your heart falls back into a quiet rhythm, you ease yourself into the co-pilot chair, petting the child between his ears.

“I should’ve kept an eye on him.”

“I can too,” Din responds immediately. He doesn’t turn in his seat, remains staring forward through the observation deck, and his voice is quiet and subdued. You allow your back to rest in your chair, sliding the little child down into your lap. He gurgles happily, reaching towards you until he can hug at your abdomen and press his face against your tunic. Din’s tunic.

“ _ I’m _ the caretaker.” You mean it as a joke, something lighthearted and easy.

He turns his chair around then, and you see his boot lift to rest on his knee with the ease of a man who didn’t just have to regain his ship’s trajectory from a tiny alien infant’s chaos.

“And I’m the protector.”

You aren’t certain where this playfulness is coming from, this easy, close feeling after so much darkness has bubbled up in your lives, belching out of the ground like pollution. 

Once, you would have held the belief that good things like love are constant, never fading and only growing, but now you can see that it resembles a wide valley between those who choose goodness. What prospers is what you plant there, and the man you know to be your closest friend, the one putting himself in danger to keep your shared love and cloaking his smile behind steel, has never seemed so dear to you. 

He begins bobbing his knee up and down, helmet tilting to the side. Sinking your elbow on the co-pilot’s arm rest, you hide your smile behind curled fingers, letting the baby in your lap chirp happily in his own little world as you stare back at his father. 

“This is my favorite part,” Din confesses, a surprising depth in his gentle baritone. He rests his gloved hands in his lap, tilting the sharply shaped visor toward his son. “The...flurry before everything snaps into place. So much can go wrong,” his voice softens, and your eyes watch his orange leather clad fingers rub what must be a smudge from his thigh cuisse. He adds, a quiet afterthought to himself more than to you, “If the will isn’t fierce enough.”

“Some things can’t be brute forced, Mando,” you whisper, a secret you have learned hard and honest over the years. Some slaves can’t free themselves, some flowers hold poison. Fervent wishes don’t change what is actually true and real.

His helmet tilts up in one, smooth motion. “You’ve never called me that before.”

A gentle accusation, softened with wonder. You allow him your smile then, dropping your hand from your chin. “It seemed rude, before,” you say, allowing the baby to grab your hand and play with your fingers. Your ring gleams in pale comparison to his little green hands as he turns it about your finger. “Lesser than what you deserve.”

He sits still as a stone statue, silent to the point you think he may have stopped breathing. 

“So why now?” he hedges, dropping his boot and bracing his elbows on his knees.

“Because we have a guest on board,” you tell him easily, gesturing over your shoulder to the open cockpit door. You’re not sure how long Cara has been there, beyond your view and hidden, but you can taste her self-satisfaction hanging in the air like woodsmoke, heavy and aromatic. She makes herself known, slouching into view and leaning lazily against the threshold. You ignore the urge to look at her. “And some things-” His name, you think, feeling like a dragon hoarding a prize. “-are  _ private _ .”

“You shouldn’t listen at doors,” Din mutters, his chastisement bittersweet toward your friend. You think of Corde and Venka, of the two small children he similarly reprimanded, who he protected and cared for more than himself for so long. You swallow down that threat of emotion, though, even when you think of the mudhorn in your dream.

“You should close your door, then,” Cara says, dropping down in the opposite co-pilot chair. She has no fear of spreading herself out, of taking up as much space as she pleases. It’s demanding, irreverent, and a not insignificant part of you finds it charming. She tosses a hand in the child’s direction, who has now settled with his ear pressed to your tummy and holding your hand against himself like he does with his stuffed toy. “You learn a lot from eavesdropping.” 

You puff a laugh, shaking your head. “Cara.”

Din rolls his helmet to the side before turning back around. “We’ll be making a jump to hyper drive,” he says, and you can tell by the incline of his shadow that he’s listening for the sound of seat belts buckling. You wait for Cara to fasten hers before asking her to pass the blue blanket draped over the back of her chair, and you fold it around the little child clutching you as Din makes the jump with perfected ease.

“We’ll take Corellian Run. It’s the busiest, but it’s the fastest.”

“That’s a major lane,” Cara says, her voice tense with caution. “What if we get stopped?”

“We won’t.”

Your curiosity prickles like a living thing, tilting your head to try and make out any of the coordinates on the control display as Din types them in. “How do you know?”

“New Republic systems don’t recognize the Crest. If we can get in and out fast enough, no one should even know we’re there,” Din’s voice pitches low, and you swallow when he adds, “I hope.”

Cara cracks the joint in her neck, her heel taking to bouncing her knee. “I swear to Maker, Mando, if you leave me stranded on Coruscant-”

“No one’s getting stranded,” you say quickly, glancing down at the baby checking to make sure he’s close to sleep. The last thing you want to do is start an argument and upset him, and you relax when you find his eyes growing heavy. You take to petting his back, and soon his little snores are the only sound in the cockpit. 

“You should get some rest,” Din says over his shoulder, and you don’t know if he speaks to you or to Cara. Probably both. “We’ll be in hyper for a little while.”

Cara heaves a sigh and begins situating herself in her chair as you stand, carrying the baby out. You take him down into the hull where his pram floats quietly, its anchor to Din’s vambrace turned off, and you tuck him into it with gentle hands. His eyes pull open with a mountainous effort, and he starts to fuss, holding his hands out toward you.

“Oh, there now,” you murmur, sitting on the edge of the medical bay and pulling the pram closer. You rock it gently, cooing quietly until his ears droop once more and his eyes fall shut. When his breathing evens out, you withdraw your hands and bow over the pram, kissing his little cheek before closing the shutters.

“ _ Mesh’la _ .”

You jump in your shoulders, looking over at the armored warrior with one hand on the ladder rung, leaning to one side. You hear a breathy chuckle, and he lets go of the ladder to approach you.

“Sorry.”

You look back down at the pram before turning away and reaching into the medical cot to lift out the old woolen blanket Din keeps as a pillow. “I thought Cara might want it,” you explain, holding it between your hands as you move carefully back toward him. Your own tooled leather boots come to stand nearly toe to toe with his own, and you don’t realize that you’re looking down until a crooked finger gently raises your chin so your eyes meet his visor. You can smell the blaster fuel on his fingers, and it is no longer an unpleasant kind of scent. 

“That’s kind of you.”

He doesn’t move his hand away, using his thumb to swipe at your chin in an affectionate touch. His whole body seems to expand and deflate when he sighs next, though, and only then does his hand fall. “I need to tell you something...ask you something.”

“Anything,” you whisper, a smile plucking the gentle curve of your mouth. 

His gloved hand gently touches your elbow, and he leads you to one of the crates near the hatch, surprising you when his hands slide around your waist to lift you on top of it. You’re more of a height now, and you feel your body warm when he cups your knees and gently presses them apart. The blanket falls from your hands, and squeaking his name is more instinct than will when he rests his hands on top of your thighs. 

But he seems content to just simply lean close, resting against you and the crate and making no further move to incite the heat gathering in your belly. In fact, with the way he barely moves, you recognize the familiar nervousness, the same sensation you had when he wished to take you and the children away to the only place you can remember feeling like home.

“I have enough credits to give Cara for this. Or enough for fuel, but not both,” he finally says, one of his hands picking at a loose thread on his old tunic. You listen patiently, nodding in understanding. The smoky glass of the visor is more shadow to you now, his entire outline like something out of a dream. “Either way, we’ll need the credits, so I thought I might try to take a job while she’s on Coruscant for what we need.” 

Your eyebrows lift at the news, though at the same time, you aren’t surprised to hear this. It felt too smooth of him to offer Cara the job at all if he didn’t have a plan in his back pocket. Months before, you would’ve been annoyed, possibly even angry that he would withhold such ideas from you, but you’ve come a long way since his duel with Paz Vizla and making decisions without telling you. 

That alone excites you even more than his hands on your body.

“I was thinking…rather, I  _ know _ ,” Din mutters the last bit. “That you won’t like either suggestion, but I need to know what you think is best.”

Now,  _ that _ is a surprise. 

“Me?” you ask dumbly, allowing the blanket to slip to the floor where it pools around his boots. Din glances down at it, then hesitates before nodding his helmet. “Why me?”

His breath puffs through the vocoder, creating a slight static. “Because I don’t want you to go with Cara on Coruscant,” he says slowly, tilting his head back as if looking up at the ceiling will give him strength to get the words out. “But it might be safer than you coming with me.” 

It takes you more than a moment to decipher what exactly he means, and you draw yourself up defensively when you realize he’s giving you the option to argue not going with him. He once asked you to stay on Nevarro, too, but he has learned that lesson and learned it well. 

“You want me and-and the baby to go with Cara?” you blink at this, especially when he doesn’t speak or move. He makes a long-suffering groan, and you knock on the beskar chest plate, drawing his attention. When he drops his helmet forward, you’re smirking. “Why don’t you try to tell me the entire truth of the matter, and then I’ll give you my opinion?”

Din sighs again, but then he’s moving his hands from your legs to your own fingers, warming them beneath the orange leather of his gloves. “The job came through a hologram, and-and it’s with an old group I used to work with.” 

You wait for more, giving him the time and space to find the best words. It’s easier, you think, talking truth and fairness in the dark with sweat cooling on your skin and lungs burning bright. It comes easier to him, in those moments, when there’s a quiet joy shared between you so tightly that nothing feels impossible. It is no small knowledge to you how much this must cost him-far beyond a few hundred credits. 

“They’re bad people,” he finally admits, squeezing your hands. “And I was one of them, once.”

Your gaze falls from the visor to his bandolier, counting the ammunition it holds before you choose your own words. It is not hard to imagine this husband of yours creating hurt and pain, and you repress the shiver it brings upon you. That shade is not the man you vowed yourself to, and it is not the one who is trying to keep your son with you, either. Your voice cracks like crunched glass when you ask, “Will you have to do bad things, again?”

“I don’t know.” He pauses, adding, “They might want to.” 

You can’t be sure where the peace comes from, the assurance that lays on your shoulders like a warm cloak, but whether it’s from how small Din’s voice sounds or how desperately he holds your hands in his, you are, in the quietest shift, the one holding the answer, the knowledge, the permission to do what needs to be done. These things that would help him to finish the job to protect your little one, to keep your family safe. With the gentlest of pressure, you turn your hands around his own, holding his wrists with comfort, and you smile.

“That was a long time ago, now. I cannot promise I will like what I learn, but it will not make me love you less,” you whisper, letting go of one hand to trace the sharpened cut of the helmet’s cheek. “We both promised to do what’s needed to protect him,” you add, lifting his hand up and pressing a kiss to the inside of his wrist. It’s just where his glove and sleeve don’t meet, baring a glimpse of golden skin. You breathe in the scent of soap, of stale oxygen and well oiled steel, and you look up at his visor. “No matter the cost. Right?”

It takes a moment before he nods, shaky and unsure, and you let go of his wrist to cup both sides of his helmet. Your nimble thumb releases the catch beneath, and you lift it up just enough for your lips to find his own in a quiet, warm kiss. His breath trembles as you smile against his mouth, feeling his hands drop to your waist. He sways when you pull back, and you bump your nose to his.

“I’m coming with you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mando'a Translations:
> 
> Gev ibac- Stop that
> 
> Mesh'la- Beautiful


End file.
